Description

From the admiralty to the miner's strike, from the Battle of Britain to the Nobel Prize, Churchill oversaw some of the most important events the World has ever seen. Roy Jenkins faithfully presents these events, while also managing to convey the contradictions and quirks in Churchill's character. In depth analysis and brilliant historical research make this a magnificent one-volume biography of an extraordinary life. In some ways a companion piece to his excellent biography of Gladstone, "Churchill" is packed with insights that only a fellow politician could convey. "There is no doubt that he has surpassed himself. This is the biography of the year." - Robert McCrum, "Observer". "This is a first class, well-sustained work of history and a masterpiece of biography " - Andrew Roberts, "Sunday Telegraph". "Lord Jenkins of Hillhead is an outstanding biographer...it has the narrative power, sweep and sparkle of the author in his prime." - John Grigg, "Times".show more

Review quote

"There is no doubt that he has surpassed himself. This is the biography of the year." Robert McCrum, Observer; "This is a first class, well-sustained work of history and a masterpiece of biography "Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph; "Lord Jenkins of Hillhead is an outstanding biographer...it has the narrative power, sweep and sparkle of the author in his prime." John Grigg, Timesshow more

About Roy Jenkins

Roy Jenkins was the author of many books, including Churchill and Gladstone, which won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. Active in British politics for half a century, he entered the House of Commons in 1948 and subsequently served as Minister of Aviation, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer; he was also the President of the European Commission and Chancellor of Oxford University. In 1987 he took his seat in the House of Lords. He died in January 2003.show more

Review Text

There were two good reasons for inviting Jenkins to write Churchill's life. He has held some of the same high offices - as a former home secretary and chancellor of the exchequer he has inside knowledge of what such work involves; and he has already written biographies of statesmen such as Dilke, Asquith and Gladstone, so can place many of Churchill's multifarious activities in their historical context. The result is a fine book, which recounts generally familiar stories from unexpected and revealing angles. Jenkins presents the young Winston Churchill as a brash, pushing, bumptious boy, full of aristocratic arrogance; as his long book develops, he shows how its 'irremediably proactive' central character fulfilled his youthful certainty that he was a Great Man. He brings out Churchill's recklessness, his readiness to take risks and his preference for the more daring rather than the safer course of action. Rashness extended to his private finances, which were seldom stable; born in Blenheim Palace, he enjoyed his creature comforts, and trusted to providence to pay for them. Staying at a strange country house in 1917, he reports that it has the essentials - 'Hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy'. Readers are taken right through the roller-coaster ride of Churchill's career, from subaltern service in the army in India to capture in South Africa, escape, election to parliament as a Tory, office as a Liberal, disgrace over the Dardanelles, rescue by Lloyd George, the exchequer under Baldwin, ten years of political exile, the salvation of the nation in the crisis of 1940, defeat at the end of the world war, and return - 'gloriously unfit for office' - for a final spell as prime minister from 1951 to 1955; then ten more years in eclipse. Stern Gladstonians will object to Jenkins's view that, by a whisker, Churchill was the greatest man ever to sit in Downing Street; the rest of us will enjoy it. (Kirkus UK)show more